Season 43, Week 1 - PETA rallies for kitties and hedgehogs. Avalon is insulted.

[Fudozukushi]

Basilisks in the abandoned factory take 1.25 from Wind.  Lava Golems in  the second part of Mt. Zaleho take 1.25 as well.

[Magic Fanatic]

Well, just for clarification from a rather reliable guide I go to for the game...

Additionally, FOF changes are not limited to the specified Fonon requirement.
A Wind FOF change can happen in a Light FOF, or a Water FOF change can happen
in a Dark FOF. Both Light and Dark are interchangable with the Fonon
adjacent to it.


Wind ---> Light <--- Fire

Earth ---> Dark <--- Water

That...  Doesn't explain Shadow Fury, but this chart seems accurate enough from what I've experienced in-game.

[Ultradude]

I'm pretty sure I've used it for wind elemental damage on... something, and the attack itself has a wind icon for its element in the attack description. Wind and Fire FOF changes can both come from Light FOFs, and Water and Earth can both come from Dark FOFs, which is what the Light and Dark FOFs are meant to do.

Shadow Fury, on the other hand, is just weird and nonsensical, I think it's the only FOF change that doesn't carry over the element from the FOF that you use it on, though I might be able to find another.

[Fudozukushi]

Shadow Fury, on the other hand, is just weird and nonsensical, I think it's the only FOF change that doesn't carry over the element from the FOF that you use it on, though I might be able to find another.

There's a handful of others, but they're at least kept on their respective FOF side.  Damn you Shadow Fury and you're randomness!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Mewtwo (PKMN): Lost Progress seals this one shut, plus Lady being albe to OHKO. Final attack Malice Dirge too. This possibly handled False Althena, and FA is way more durable than Mewtwo.
Avalon (Legaia2) vs. Dark Force (PS4): Would need to stat topic both to be sure. Very similar dudes, thinking DF is probably better though.
Raquel Applegate (WA4) vs. KOS-MOS (XS): S-Chain. Accuracy/Defence/Speed drop on Raquel is way too much for her to handle.
Ryu (BoF2) vs. Indalecio (SO2): Pretty obvious. Scaling against DL-illegal damage is a load of crap. Allow shamans if you want to do that. Indy is clearly not durable enough to handle this.

Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Lundgren (FE7): Another obvious match involving a Wise Man. Note to Snowfire: How the heck do you end up with high Indy HP respect but see Decus frail enough to lose this? Unless you see average damage dropping between the two. Zuh. Anyway, yeah, MT magic damage is not Lundgren's friend.

Scaling Lundgren against 4-5 PCs is vaguely silly, since only one PC can melee attack him a round short of rescue antics which I'm not inclined to consider. (Granted, you can add a few more ranged attackers in, but those are below average damage-dealers.)

Lenny Curtis (SH2) vs. Rei (BoF3): Lenny is the one durable SH3 boss (no MT stat boosters? No Mind's Eyes? It really adds up). Any other I'd buy a Rei win against except maybe Kato, but Lenny... yeah. Tough draw.
Edge Eblan (FF4) vs. Groudon (PKMN): Sleep. Groudon probably survives long enough to wake up, but needs two turns to win anyway, then the process repeats.


Middle

Meru (LoD) vs. Vaynard (Brig): Yeah, counters really spoil Meru.
Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Argilla (DDS): Oh hell.
Tengaar (Suikos) vs. Kira (VH): SKYLORD IMMUNES EARTHQUAKE! Maybe. Doesn't matter, Revenge Earth exists.
Alice Elliot (SH1) vs. Gares (OB): Alice didn't upgrade? Wowsers.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Peppor (CC): Peppor.
Freed Yamamoto (S2) vs. Rahal (S5): Seconding everything Super said. Dhyer as well. Rahal is TERRIBLE. Galleon's speed! Lelei's damage! Lun's physical durability! He's a bad joke outside his magic stat, and yeah, no rune.
Mariel (WA:ACF) vs. Jewel (S4): Um.
Emma Hetfield (WA:ACF) vs. Estella (S3): OHKO.

[074]

Godlike


Raquel Applegate (WA4) vs. KOS-MOS (XS) - Ouch.  S-Chain rapes Raquel like nothing else here.


Heavy

Hect (G3) vs. Asellus (Saga) - Sadly, I can only legally vote on Asellus' form in Emelia's storyline.  Which is, to be honest, crap.



Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Argilla (DDS) - Tear has wind-elemental techs?  Bye, Argilla.

Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Peppor (CC) - This
Freed Yamamoto (S2) vs. Rahal (S5) - Light
Mariel (WA:ACF) vs. Jewel (S4) - Is
Emma Hetfield (WA:ACF)* vs. Estella (S3) - AWESOME

[SnowFire]

Dark Holy Elf: That was more of a kneejerk reaction based on the relative difficulty levels of those fights (which... isn't a bad fallback, really), but looking it up, Decus has 180K HP, Indy has 500K.  I'd give Indy roughly 4x PCHP.  If we give Decus credit for fighting with an ally rather than alone, then he still only has .72 of Indy's, or 2.88 PCHP (and I might be inclined to see it as less than that anyway).  Also, I will grant that if Decus's Magic is seen as uncounterable by Lundgren, he's in big trouble....  ah, okay, I see where the Decus hype is coming from.  That would require the Javelin, which is a big step down for him.  (Looking back at the writeup, I must have missed that fact.)  Well, considering the OMGWTFHAX damage that Lundgren has with a Silver Lance easily OHKOing the lesser half of your team, and his resistance not really being that bad at all for that early in the game, if Lundgren had a special Silver Lance with 2 range I'd certainly stand by my first assessment.  Lundgren can 4HKO that kind of HP, compensating for his last strike thanks to standing still.  I'll have to think over Lundgren forced to use a Javelin at least for his first turn + first & second counters.

[SageAcrin]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Mewtwo (PKMN): Lady. ._.
Avalon (Legaia2) vs. Dark Force (PS4): Kneejerking Dark Force. Probably ought to stat topic before I vote, though.
Raquel Applegate (WA4) vs. KOS-MOS (XS): KOS-MOS. I was considering this match good before recalling S-Chain, IIRC. *Wince.* Poor Raquel. Drawing the magically cannon that is otherwise built like her wasn't a good start anyways.
Ryu (BoF2) vs. Indalecio (SO2):

Scaling against DL-illegal damage is a load of crap. Allow shamans if you want to do that.

While it's...pretty unlike me to insult an opinion in general? I have to agree. Allowing Shamans would create a really interesting/varied dynamic for BoF2, and it's right on the legality line(If you view them as abilities and not equipment...and they definitely have elements of both, so it depends on which way you want to view it as much as the logistics of it.).

So not only does scaling Ryu/Deis against things you aren't allowing really screw them? It also screws the rest of the cast out of an extension of the view that is quite interesting. It just fails at the idea of case-specific scaling, as there is a viable, simple alternative that makes 7/9 of the cast more interesting while you're doing it...

Doesn't matter a whole lot, to boot, since it's close to start with, as a match, but I do have to comment. Anyways, thinking Ryu 2 just barely pulls it off, but it's close.

Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Lundgren (FE7): Decus. Not close. Poor Lundgren, he has fights he can do pretty well against. Just not Decus.
Lenny Curtis (SH2) vs. Rei (BoF3): LENNY!
Hect (G3) vs. Asellus (Saga): Asellus, off the top of my head. Pretty sure I still allow status Mystic absorbs, and Hect is, as I recalled, a slug, so...

For everyone else...Hect's MDef is worse than I recalled relatively(Alfina's is better), so you get the whole mess of there being a borderline chance of just Fascination downing Hect before anything else is considered(not to mention, Fascination doesn't *check* MDef which come to think of it should have come up before, but never mind that.).

This is more of a mess when you consider that Hect probably wins cleanly if she doesn't get statused round 1. (Freeze, smash from there, can't see a way Asellus lives through that.) Anyways, Assassinate was physical-based, IIRC, so I'm glad I don't have the coinflip headache/Charm interp headache. ^_^

Edge Eblan (FF4) vs. Groudon (PKMN): Edge. No escape for the big lump 'o clay. Really spoiled badly.

Middle

Meru (LoD) vs. Vaynard (Brig): I'll admit as a kneejerk, Vaynard 2HKOing most anything seems vaguely wrong. Fortunately he gets three hits anyways, so even my kneejerks are satisfied. Vaynard.
Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Argilla (DDS): Best case for Tear involves an attack that is debatably Wind doubling up on Argilla so that Tear can consume her resources on non-healing even faster?

Well, no, that's not fair.

Assuming Severed Fate->Fatal Circle hauls the damage of Tear's scrubby physical combo up to average(This is after the 1.5x weakness. Fatal Circle needs a fair damage boost+the 1.5x weakness to hit do this based on the Meteor Swarm-included combo average.), it's not nearly as dark of a outlook for her....still rather iffy as a fight, since Argilla's pretty much on the line to dying to average physical damagex2 I think, and the various status attacks she could use while Tear's's casting Invoke Air make this close.

...Though, this assessment assumes the FoF's hanging around after the shot, come to think of it, which it obviously won't be, they get consumed by the Fonic Arts. So instead Tear has to use magical damage for the second shot, further muddying things.

If Fatal Circle's not Wind? Boom, there's no contest. If OK wanders in and tells us that this:

Invoke Ground/Water/Aqua/Fire - 8 TP: makes a FoF at 50%

...means what it sounds like and that Tear can't get a FoF change off without casting an Invoke twice? Boom; Tentarufoo spam makes it unlikely that Tear will live that long, as, once Panic'd, Tear's not likely to get another useful turn before getting buried by Argilla's magic. Tear's strat pretty much revolves around something that seems on very shaky ground and is a coinflip anyways, so I can't buy it.

'course, it's not shaky if you don't go by combo averages, at least on the "Does Argilla die from this?" part, in fairness, and I suppose things get into even more of a mess if you decide to coinflip instead of breaking against Tear for the initial who-goes-first speed tiebreak since Tear'd be using a spell to start with no matter what. Just throwing that out there, I don't agree with either of those, but hey.

Argilla.

Tengaar (Suikos) vs. Kira (VH): Tengaar. Not nearly as close as the above.
Alice Elliot (SH1) vs. Gares (OB): Alice. Closer than the above.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Peppor (CC): Peppor. Uhm...yeah, they're basically the same character except one has somewhat more damage and less accuracy issues(not that this matters here), while having less durability....and that one's a boss. God bless Light. Good match, I just think Peppor takes it off the top of my head.
Freed Yamamoto (S2) vs. Rahal (S5): Freed.
Mariel (WA:ACF) vs. Jewel (S4): Jewel. Yeah.
Emma Hetfield (WA:ACF) vs. Estella (S3): Estella. This is a nightmare-draw for Emma, it's not even certain Emma could do a damned thing to help herself if she went first. Emma ain't going first.

[Ultradude]

Tear doesn't need Invoke Wind to create a usable FOF. Holy Lance is an advanced spell, and creates a Light FOF with a single casting. Wind and Fire FOF changes can both be used from a Light FOF. So, Tear damages Argilla, who's only hope is to status Tear before then (what do DDS status effects check?) since if she doesn't heal after Holy Lance, Fatal Circle -> press turn anything kills her. Of course, the FOF is consumed when you use a FOF change, so if Argilla heals after Holy Lance, Tear is once again on the edge of killing with Fatal Circle and... whatever else.

Of course, it helps if you don't hold Meteor Storm against the average, I guess. (stupid spells making the second best damage dealer almost dead average...)

[Pyro]

Scaling Lundgren against 4-5 PCs is vaguely silly, since only one PC can melee attack him a round short of rescue antics which I'm not inclined to consider. (Granted, you can add a few more ranged attackers in, but those are below average damage-dealers.)

1 melee position, 4 ranged. I'll grant that the ranged are sub-par damage dealers, but the melee position can be occupied by Manni Katti Lyn or super promoted unit. All that really matters for me is that he wouldn't last a round without that physical defense. Which doesn't matter here since his Mdef is in question for the match. I also won't let him use Silver Lance against a magic using opponent.

Granted, I haven't bothered to check whether he's doubled by average or not. I just kinda assumed that because pretty much everyone I checked doubled him.

[SageAcrin]

Tear doesn't need Invoke Wind to create a usable FOF. Holy Lance is an advanced spell, and creates a Light FOF with a single casting. Wind and Fire FOF changes can both be used from a Light FOF. So, Tear damages Argilla, who's only hope is to status Tear before then (what do DDS status effects check?) since if she doesn't heal after Holy Lance, Fatal Circle -> press turn anything kills her. Of course, the FOF is consumed when you use a FOF change, so if Argilla heals after Holy Lance, Tear is once again on the edge of killing with Fatal Circle and... whatever else.

Of course, it helps if you don't hold Meteor Storm against the average, I guess. (stupid spells making the second best damage dealer almost dead average...)

Ah, right, forgot the Light thing.

Takes multiple Holy Lances, though, one never has been enough of any spell to make a full FoF, I thought, hence no Fonic Arts without a Sunlight Chamber(If you allow those, fine, but it does rather change the dynamic of this fight; I didn't assume 'em. If you do, Tear probably wins cleanly in general, for the record, unless that'd screw with averages too much; I honestly don't know. They're so rare that this strikes me as odd, though.).

Holy Lance is hitting Argilla's much better MDef and it'll take at least two, quite possibly three(I don't know the exact amount of spells required for a FoF, do you? It usually seemed around three for a full one from most spells, though, which would be really bad. If you're saying Holy Lance makes a full FoF in one shot....that...doesn't sound right at all to me, do you have an independant source/have you tested?) to make an FoF. I dunno.

DDS Statuses check Luck, IIRC. (They have an agility complete-miss check, too.) They...may check MDef, but I'm not sure. I'm also not entirely sure Tentarufoo acts like the rest of them for it's status kick-on rate.

[Fudozukushi]

Tear can make Full Light FOFs with both Holy Lance and Grand Cross.

[muakaka]

Ah, right, forgot the Light thing.

Takes multiple Holy Lances, though, one never has been enough of any spell to make a full FoF, I thought, hence no Fonic Arts without a Sunlight Chamber(If you allow those, fine, but it does rather change the dynamic of this fight; I didn't assume 'em. If you do, Tear probably wins cleanly in general, for the record, unless that'd screw with averages too much; I honestly don't know. They're so rare that this strikes me as odd, though.).

Holy Lance is hitting Argilla's much better MDef and it'll take at least two, quite possibly three(I don't know the exact amount of spells required for a FoF, do you? It usually seemed around three for a full one from most spells, though, which would be really bad. If you're saying Holy Lance makes a full FoF in one shot....that...doesn't sound right at all to me, do you have an independant source/have you tested?) to make an FoF. I dunno.

DDS Statuses check Luck, IIRC. (They have an agility complete-miss check, too.) They...may check MDef, but I'm not sure. I'm also not entirely sure Tentarufoo acts like the rest of them for it's status kick-on rate.

A SINGLE casting of Holy Lance gives a FULL Light FOF ready for her to use.
It's pretty distinctive that it forms the full FOF cause I believe it's one of your first.
The FOF should at least last till her next turn(Or if you view FoF cancelling for TotA crew, then an immediate Fatal Circle to Argilla's face)

The main point of casting Holy Lance is for the FOF, not the damage.
Argilla will probably need to heal it off for a chance to survive the turn after that, or she may attempt her status.
Problem is, Fatal Circle followed by a Tear physical chain hits hard, and it's against the PC with gameWORST HP and defense.
Fatal Circle not only gets a weakness damage boost against Argilla, FoF changes will give the skill a certain multiplier to the damage. I might test the numbers of relevant self-doable FoF changes sometime during the weekend, after my exams.

[Ultradude]

1 melee position, 4 ranged. I'll grant that the ranged are sub-par damage dealers, but the melee position can be occupied by Manni Katti Lyn or super promoted unit. All that really matters for me is that he wouldn't last a round without that physical defense. Which doesn't matter here since his Mdef is in question for the match. I also won't let him use Silver Lance against a magic using opponent.

Granted, I haven't bothered to check whether he's doubled by average or not. I just kinda assumed that because pretty much everyone I checked doubled him.

5 speed to 7 average, with stat topic levels. Decus needs to have decent speed to double, which his stat topic says he does, depends on whether you see it as equal to 9 to a 7 average. Granted, not having played SO2, it still seems like Decus' win to me. Lundgren's HP isn't bad, but it's still FE human boss HP, and his Res, while a lot better than the average enemy at that point (most enemies fail to get over 2, he's got 7) it still doesn't have a very strong effect in-game.

EDIT: Sage, all of the advanced spells create FOFs in one use, like Jade's Infernal Prison and Thunder Blade, or Anise's Bloody Howling.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Off the top of my head, assuming averagish growths the people who will fail to double Lundgren will be Wallace, Sain, Dorcas, and Wil. Lyn, Matthew, Lucius, and Rath will be able to double. Erk and Kent are borderline and will depend on levels. Florina will be able to double with a Slim Lance, but that won't do damage; Iron/Heavy Spear means she won't. So it's pretty much a 50/50 split, and Dorcas/Wallace aside, it's a fast party.

I'd have pegged the average as 8 personally, but I also don't recall Decus being at all fast with his magic (physicals, sure) so yeah, I don't see him doubling here. Granted, I also don't think it matters.

[Pyro]

Thanks for clearing that up. I must have had better luck with spd gains than most. I don't think that really saves him here though.

Just out of curiosity... do people let Lundgren use Silver Lance in the DL against an opponent with ranged attacks? I guess this applies to every FE boss who has an inferior ranged weapon and can't move.

[Nephrite]

Thanks for clearing that up. I must have had better luck with spd gains than most. I don't think that really saves him here though.

Just out of curiosity... do people let Lundgren use Silver Lance in the DL against an opponent with ranged attacks? I guess this applies to every FE boss who has an inferior ranged weapon and can't move.

I would assume he can use it just fine, but those who allow counters wouldn't let him counter ranged attacks with it.

[Monkeyfinger]

I let him move in the DL. That also means no considering any throne bonuses he might have in game.

[SageAcrin]

Hum, full FoF in one shot, eh?

So we're back to the coinflip again, with the same issues of Tentarufoo existing. Argilla has game-worst defense and HP, yes, but in a terribly low spread of HP and a fairly minor defensive impact; It's uncertain that the combo would raise something that is about 2/3rds average as a total combo to 2HKO-level, even after the 1.5x weakness on Fatal Circle is factored in, and then there's the odds that Argilla just nails Tear with Panic before that.

Okay.

And I was assuming that Tear lead off with a physical combo that included Fatal Circle at the end, then a second physical chain. The former, after weakness and damage boost from Fatal Circle(assuming it's around 1.3x, which sounded right for FoF, +1.5x weakness=about double damage from the last combo hit=average damage.), is about...average damage.

Now, more to Argilla, sure, but unless it produces a full FoF at the end of the combo, the second physical chain's back to 2/3rds average. 1.6x average or so, so it's...kinda poor, though Argilla as I said has a chance to die from that if you lack respect enough; It's an interp coinflip. Just using Fatal Circle and then a physical combo, if you see the FoF not lasting long enough to do a full chain->Fatal Circle, if she's stuck just using Fatal Circle and a normal combo, is going to do...around 1.2x average damage, after weakness... it's pathetic and may not one shot Meru, let alone Argilla.

Actually, this is sounding worse for Tear the more I math it out. <_<

[cloudstrifesheart]

This is like a horrible week. All the matches minus a few are just flat out boring.

Ryu vs. Indalecio- Can someone really give a good explanation how a PC stands a chance against Indalecio, especially a character without healing. I remember him not having healing.

Lenny vs. Rei- As much as I want Rei to win this, you jut can't trust Weretiger form. He can take himself out. If it was guaranteed that he wouldn't attack himself...I'd go for Rei.

Victor vs. Peppor- I don't see Victor as a Suiko scrub

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ryu does have healing, in Guts. And I'm pretty sure Indy can be soloed without healing in-game by Claude and maybe some others, but that's for Super to weigh in on.

Regardless, Ryu2 does insane damage, and a lot of people don't see bosses as -that- much better than PCs for HP (like, 2 or 3 times, yes; 6 times, not so much).

[superaielman]

Without healing? Sure, but that's getting into ARPG spam locking arguments/Algol shit.  You're not going to lock him down post ToT even with bunny shoes with most characters. (Dias/Bowman offhand).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

As someone who managed to kill Indy before he could trigger ToT... um, yeah, it's perfectly possible but enters finicky arguments.

[superaielman]

You can't do that solo, is the point.

[VySaika]

Ryu vs. Indalecio- Can someone really give a good explanation how a PC stands a chance against Indalecio, especially a character without healing. I remember him not having healing.

Even without healing, Ryu2 can do this. Indy's damage pre-ToT isn't all that special, and Ryu2 has one shot of horrific overkill damage to blow right through Indy's ToT phase. Indy's basically a limit-boss, and limit fighters of any sort hate Ryu2 with a passion. There are few things that G. Dragon doesn't kill outright, and most of those are handled by 1 or 2 physicals and THEN G. Dragon. Some things still survive that(hi BoF bosses) but for most of us, Indy isn't one of those things.

Now, if you have high respect for Indy's durability(or...his pre-ToT damage for some reason) or hold Ryu2 against Shamans, or just don't respect G. Dragon(for...some reason), then Indy has an argument. But from how I see it, he just dies to a Ryu2 physical+G. Dragon and can't kill Ryu2 first.

You might still disagree, and that's fine, but hope that suffices as an explanation(and someone else please correct me if I missed something here, though I don't think I did.)